Vintage guitar of the week #15 - 1971 Fender Mustang in Competition Red
Ah, the Mustang. A weird little guitar. But cool.
Let's talk about the '71 Fender Mustang in "Competition" Red.
The Mustang is one of the most affordable (if not the most affordable) vintage Fender electrics you can buy. You'll see that the price is surprisingly low for a Fender that old. It's not because the guitar has anything wrong with it other than a few minor cosmetic issues. Mustangs just don't command high prices.
Said another way, if you want to collect a vintage Fender electric, check out Mustangs. Believe me, there are always plenty to choose from, even for models made in the late 1960s.
What about new?
There's the Fender Classic Series '65 Mustang on the expensive side, and the Squier Vintage Modified Mustang on the cheap side. I would actually prefer the Squier if buying new because the truss rod adjustment is at the pegboard and not the heel.
How come vintage Mustangs don't command higher prices?
There are several reasons for this.
The "Dynamic Vibrato" system
What you have here is a plate with strings installed on it that rest on saddles that do not have adjustable height (the bridge's height however can be adjusted, thankfully.) This system is like a cross between a Stratocaster and a Jazzmaster, and to be honest, most players find it completely unusable..
..but then again, I've never known anyone to use a Mustang vibrato system, so that's really not a big deal.
Small
The Mustang is a little guitar. It qualifies as adult-sized, but just barely. The neck is a short scale 24.0-inch just like the Jaguar, but it's the body where you really feel the smallness of the instrument.
The advantage of the smallness is that nearly all Mustangs are very lightweight guitars.
"Phase Slider" switches
Some players just don't like these switches. I've wrote about this at length before, but this is how the two switches above the pickups work:
There are 4 possible combinations. Front pickup only, rear pickup only, both pickups in-phase, both pickups out-of-phase.
I'll label these as F, M, R and list below the 4 pickup combinations.
FM or RM: Rear pickup only.
MF or MR: Front pickup only.
FF or RR: Both pickups on, in-phase.
FR or RF: Both pickups on, out-of-phase.
What happens if both switches are in the middle position? That's both pickups off, and you would hear nothing.
The out-of-phase sound is a "nasal" or "honky" type of tone, while in-phase has somewhat of a Telecaster sound to it. I say 'somewhat' because the pickup spacing is different on the Mustang compared to a Telecaster.
I basically describe the Mustang's tone as a mix between a Jaguar and a Telecaster. Yes, it is a very usable sound.
What's a "competition" Mustang color?
To the best of my knowledge, any Mustang labeled as "Competition" means it has the racing stripe on the body. Of the Competition colors, I've seen Dakota Red, White, Lake Placid Blue (which for real-deal vintage sometimes turns to green), and the rarest - and also ugliest of the bunch - yellow (which over time turns to orange).
Now if you take a look at a yellow Competition Mustang and think, "Oh, wow, cool, I like that!" Trust me, you don't. The Competition Yellow Fender Mustang is one of those guitars that looks better in pictures compared to real life. I guarantee that in person you would hate the look of this guitar. While in pictures it looks cool, in person it looks very toy-like. Or go ahead and get one if you want, because I'm not the boss of you.
Think of it like this. The Mustang is already a smaller guitar. Slapping a "wild" color on it doesn't help make the guitar look any better.
Dakota Red and Lake Placid Blue with the stripe are the two best lookers of the bunch.
Does the stripe work on a Squier Mustang?
There are three colors of Squier Mustang. Fiesta Red, Sonic Blue and Vintage White.
Of the three colors that would take to a stripe properly, there's only one. The Vintage White version. That guitar comes with a tortoise shell pick guard. If you swap out the guard from that to parchment ("aged" white,) then apply a dark blue stripe, you've then got the look of an early-1970s Fender Mustang, around 1973 or so. It's a good look for the guitar. Yes, you can get this out of a Squier, but the guard has to be changed out to a solid parchment color first.
In the end, the competition stripe can work on the Mustang, but it all depends on the color choice. Dakota Red + off-white stripe works, Lake Placid Blue + silver or sky blue or off-white stripe works, and Vintage White + dark/navy stripe works. There are probably other color combinations that work too, but those are the three biggies, so to speak.
Is a cutaway acoustic guitar worth the bother?
Not really.
Take two dirt cheap acoustic guitars, the Jasmine S35 and the Jasmine S34C. And when I say dirt cheap, I mean it. (And surprisingly, both guitars get really good reviews.)
The S35 is your standard dreadnought acoustic shape, and the S34C is the cutaway shape.
The only reason the cutaway shape exists is to have fret access above the 13th fret.
On an electric guitar, it makes total sense to use a cutaway shape so you can access all the frets on the neck.
On an acoustic guitar, it makes no sense at all to have access to the high frets since you will never play there anyway.
Now you might think to yourself, "Oh yes, I would play there all the time!" No, you wouldn't. If you own an acoustic now with the cutaway shape, try playing notes on those frets. Yeah, sounds pretty terrible, doesn't it? That's because it's an acoustic and not an electric. There are no pickups compensating for that "bitey", nasty tone that sounds like a kid's toy piano up there.
On the acoustic, it is very unlikely you will ever play anything past the 7th fret, or maybe the 9th fret if you're adventurous. When you want your notes and chords to ring loud and true, you don't play anywhere above the 7th fret so you can keep as much definition out of the sound as possible.
You can't apply electric guitar thinking to an acoustic. Many try, all fail.
Of course, there's always That Famous Acoustic Player someone will mention that plays really high on the fretboard with his cutaway acoustic guitar. Here's a news flash for you. You're not that guy, and you will never be that guy.
The standard full size dreadnought shape always sounds best
Take this beginner's bundle, Yamaha FG700S "Folk" Bundle. While costing more than just the guitar itself (which by the way gets a top 5-star rating even though it's cheap), it's a darned good deal.
Why do cheap full size dreadnoughts get such stellar ratings? Because they're built traditionally. This style of guitar was around way before the electric was, and through literally centuries of building them, companies with modern machining and modern materials are able to build these things so well that even the cheapest models play and sound incredible these days...
...as long as it's a full size. Stick with the full size shape, and yes, it will sound good and project well. With a cutaway shape, you take your chances and usually lose.
"I want something I can plug in to an amp"
No, you don't.
Acoustic guitars always sound better from a microphone and not an on-guitar pickup. Remember, a standalone microphone (or a pair of them) is more close to what your ears hear.
If you absolutely have to have a pickup, get a Seymour Duncan Woody. Yes, I've mentioned this before and will mention it again. The Woody goes right in the sound hole and sounds great - but - I guarantee you will like the miked sound better.
Stick with the full size dreadnought
Sounds the best, plays the best, rests the best on your leg when sitting and it's not any heavier than a cutaway is since an acoustic dreadnought is lightweight to begin with.
You're not going to play solos on high frets with your acoustic. Get that electric guitar thinking out of your head. Stay with the full size shape. It has been proven for longer than you've been alive that it's the best you can use for a steel string 6-string acoustic. What more proof do you need?
Cheap guitar of the week #31 - Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar
This is, believe it or not, the first time I've featured this specific guitar here.
If you follow me on the internet, you know I play a Squier Jazzmaster. But the guitar featured here is the Squier Jaguar. To the untrained eye, the Jazz and the Jag look the same. Trust me, they're not the same.
The first major difference from Jazz to Jag is that the Jazz is a 25.5-inch scale with a 3-way toggle on the bottom horn, and the Jag is a 24.0-inch short scale with individual pickup switches on the bottom horn. The second major difference is that the Jazz has large single-coil pickups while the Jag has skinny ones.
For most people (at least for adult players), playing a Jag is usually their first experience with a short scale guitar.
Are special strings required for the Jag short scale neck?
No. You can use whatever guitar strings you normally use.
Is the string tension different on a Jag neck?
Yes. It will be looser in tension. Typically, what most players do is use strings that are one gauge thicker than what they ordinarily play on a 25.5-inch scale Strat. If for example you're used to a 10-46 set on a Stratocaster but that feels too loose on the Jag, going up one gauge thickness to an 11-48 set is normal.
What does a Jag sound like?
Very bright and twangy, thanks to its skinny single-coil pickups, 1meg linear volume pot and 1meg audio tone pot.
How does the switching work?
Top (rhythm circuit): Thumbwheel volume, thumbwheel tone, rhythm/lead circuit selector switch. When switch is up, top controls are used, front pickup only.
Bottom (lead circuit): Volume knob, tone knob, "Cut" slider switch (traditionally known as a "strangle" switch), off/on rear pickup switch, off/on front pickup switch.
Is the Jag good as a first guitar?
NO. The Jag was never designed to be a student guitar, and in fact was considered, along with the Jazzmaster, to be Fenders flagship guitars back in the early 1960s. Both guitars were designed to have many tonal options for adult players.
Guitars that serve well as first instruments for adults or student guitars for kids (and by "kids" I mean a child who is at least 13 years old) are the Squier Affinity Telecaster, Epiphone Les Paul Special II and the Schecter Omen-6 I just talked about recently. The no-brainer purchase is the Omen-6, especially if buying for a kid.
I would never recommend a Jazzmaster or Jaguar to a first-time player regardless of age because the guitar is simply too complicated.
And no, a "simple" Jag or Jazz does not exist in the Squier lineup, or at least not currently. The last one that existed was the Squier Jagmaster, which was a combination of both the Jaguar and Jazzmaster in a simplified two-humbucker layout with Strat-style vibrato system.
Jags are for the adventurous
The Jaguar (and by association the Jazzmaster) is a weird, quirky guitar. It's not Telecaster-easy and never has been.
I may at some point pick up a Jag just because I like the Jazz so much. Have I ever played a Squier Jag personally? Yes. I get along just fine with one, but my main nitpick is that I don't like the lead circuit slider switches (I greatly prefer the Jazzmaster 3-way toggle.)
I do however like the short scale neck just because it's different, and I also dig the Jag's sound.
Speaking of which, at the end of the day, it all comes down to how a guitar sounds that makes you like it or not.
The Jag sounds amazing. It just does. Even in a cheap Squier flavor, the guitar has loads of tonal character.
The Jag, like the Jazzmaster, was also designed first to be a sit-down guitar. This isn't to say you can't play it standing, because you certainly can (and easily,) but the offset shape along with the fact there is no middle pickup to bash into while playing make the Jag a very comfortable player.
Last, but certainly not least, the Jag is a fun guitar. It's the kind of axe that reminds you why you started playing guitar in the first place. Having fun is what playing guitar is all about. The Jag looks cool, sounds great, plays great. It's weird, sometimes buzzy, sometimes screechy. It has character.
You have to be a bit on the bold side to play a Jag, and it does take a little while to get used to it. But it is a great guitar to go on tonal adventures with. If you're bored with Strats, Teles and Les Pauls, try a Jag.
Why you should still use DVDs to back up your stuff
A bit of a nerdy article to start off this week, but it is important you know this stuff.
If you're going to buy blank DVDs, get the 100-disc spindle of Verbatim DVD+R blank discs. Don't get the -R. There is a difference between the two, and a pretty big one at that. The +R is a multi-layer disc and the -R a single-layer. If making a DVD movie for a console player, DVD-R works best there. But for regular computer data, DVD+R is the only way to go.
Why use DVDs to back up your stuff?
There are basically two reasons.
First, it's cheap. Real cheap.
The second reason is something nobody ever talks about but is really important. Once you write data to a DVD, it cannot be overwritten. When a DVD is written to, you can't accidentally format it again, nor can you accidentally delete or overwrite files. When you format a disc and write data to it, it's permanent...
...and that is a very good thing. It's almost like a built-in insurance policy of sorts, because you can't delete files off the disc or even move them. The permanence of the written data is a nice comfort zone.
Once your discs are written to and finalized, all you have to do is just store them in a jewel case or cheap binder, put that binder in a cool, dry place and pretty much forget about it until you need the discs again to pull a backup, should you need to.
What is the best file format to back up your stuff?
This is where I work the musician angle in here, because I've learned about what I'm about to tell you the hard way.
If you record music or make videos, you know that the best formats are the uncompressed style. With a Windows PC, that means WAV audio and AVI video files. These files get big, and the problem with writing big files to backup is that they can get corrupted while being written to media.
The way to prevent this from happening is stupidly easy. Put the file in an archive container first.
How do you create an archive? 7-Zip. Or if you want a program that's fancier with more options, PeaZip. Both are free software. But no matter which you use, I strongly suggest using nothing but the 7z archive format. Why? Because it's better than regular ZIP.
What's the best burning utility?
ImgBurn. Also free. If you've never used that software, it can be slightly intimidating at first just because it has a lot of options. And yes, it's a little old as it is 2013 software, but it's damned good software.
While true Windows on its own can burn discs with no need to use burner software, I still use ImgBurn anyway because it does certain things better. Try it out and you'll understand what I mean.
How long does a DVD last?
That depends on the quality of media you buy. Generally speaking, Verbatim is the go-to brand.
If you want to spend extra and want the best disc blank, Taiyo Yuden is what you want.
Assuming for the moment you buy proper Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden discs, and store them properly in a jewel case or binder, and keep those jewel cases or binder(s) in a cool, dry environment, and use an optical drive that's in good working order, you can expect a minimum of 7 to 10 years out of a disc before read failures start happening.
However, it has been known for some discs to last well beyond that. There are some people out there who have discs they burned in the mid-1990s that still work today, and that was almost 20 years ago at the time I write this.
No, I'm not saying your discs will last 20 years. But when written to with proper working hardware and stored correctly, they should last for at least 10.
Should you buy an external DVD burner?
This actually is a pretty good idea.
Using a simple external burner that connects and is powered by a USB cable can be moved from computer to computer. If you're in the situation where you own multiple computers and one or more doesn't have an optical drive, yeah, you need an external burner.
Or, if you have an internal burner now, the external is nice to have as a backup optical drive. External burners are certainly cheap enough these days, so it's worth it to get one.
Why bother with DVDs when USB pendrives are so cheap now?
USB pendrives are cheap - but still not as cheap as DVDs are.
If for example you buy a 100-pack of discs, and that costs you $30 with shipping included, that translates to 30 cents per disc, and you can store all the discs in a binder. USB pendrives even at their absolute cheapest don't get anywhere near the price of a blank DVD.
True, the DVD holds 4.7GB while a dirt cheap USB pendrive holds 8GB, but the inconvenience of having a bunch of pendrives or memory cards scattered around in a box is just annoying.
Also remember it's a lot easier to grab a marker and write (as in write by hand) on a disc compared to a pendrive or memory card.
Why bother with DVDs when you can store everything online?
Sure, you can use Skydrive or Dropbox or whatever for free, but there is absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that any online data storage service will be online tomorrow - even if you pay for it.
In addition, storing things "in the cloud" is a bit of a trap. Over time, let's say you store a whole bunch of data out there, and now you have 25GB of your stuff in the cloud. Say you had to download all that. How long would that take? Probably a really long time, and some of the data would most likely arrive corrupted because of a transfer glitch, forcing you to download it all over again. Even if you have a ridiculously fast connection, that's annoying.
Storing stuff in the cloud sounds like a good idea at first, but it isn't. Storing too much stuff online is where you get into the trap, because if the time ever comes where you have to download it all, that will be a long, tedious task to complete.
Local media is still the best way to go about it, even if it means using cheap DVDs. On DVD disc, it would take 6 discs to store 25GB worth of data. And I absolutely guarantee you could copy all the data from 6 discs faster than you could download it from the internet.
DVD. It's cheap; it works.
Yeah, the DVD is old, but for the data you care about, it's still one of the best things going. Great for storing audio and video projects, photos, programs you download, documents and so on. All that stuff still fits on DVDs easily.
Vintage guitar of the week #14 - 1953 Fender Telecaster
It's probably true you can't afford this guitar. But you can recreate the sound of one if you know the right stuff to buy.
A real-deal 1953 Fender Telecaster is ridiculously expensive when it's the genuine article.
Is it worth it to give a go at recreating the sound of a '53?
Personally, I don't think that's a good idea, and I'll tell you why.
Vintage Telecaster wiring vs. Modern
For those of not in the know, the '53 is not wired like a modern Telecaster. Old-school vintage wiring is known as "dark tone" or "black guard." Position 1 is the rear pickup with tone control. Position 2 is the front pickup with tone control. Position 3 is the one that drives everyone nuts. It's the front pickup with no tone control and preset to have all treble rolled off.
Do I personally recommend vintage Tele wiring? Absolutely not. You are better off with the modern wiring of rear / both / front selections with volume and tone control on all positions.
"Building 'em like they used to" sometimes isn't all it's cracked up to be. To have a Tele wired without a both-pickups-together setting and have one of the positions be totally useless for most players just isn't smart.
Flat-pole pickups
From 1952 to mid-1956, Fender used pickups where the pole pieces were flat and not staggered. This results in the thicker strings being heard more than the thinner strings simply because of greater vibration, and the sound has, understandably, a lot more bass to it compared to the staggered poles Fender used later on.
If you've been playing Fender guitars for any length of time, you're very used to the staggered pole sound. Going from that to flat-pole - especially on a Telecaster pickup which has higher output than a Strat pickup does (at least in the rear position) - is a tone that takes getting used to.
This is not to say flat-pole is bad. It's just different.
"Ashtray" bridge with "long barrel" string saddles
A vintage Tele bridge is called an ashtray because it resembles an ashtray. Long barrel saddles are the vintage style where there are only 3 saddles, each supporting two strings.
Personally, I like the ashtray bridge just because it looks cool. Some players hate it because the outer edges stick up away from the body, potentially causing discomfort depending on your playing style. My playing style isn't affected by ashtray bridge, so it's not a problem for me.
The main problem with long barrel Tele saddles is intonation. It's basically impossible to intonate a Tele completely with this saddle style, and you will always have certain parts of the neck and certain chords played that are out-of-tune no matter what you do.
If you like the look but hate the intonation problems (and who wouldn't?), the solution is compensated staggered saddles.
Are the compensated long saddles as good as the smaller per-string saddles where better intonation is concerned? No. But they are better than the old long barrel saddles that have no compensation or stagger at all.
If you have a Tele now with the long barrel saddles and have intonation issues (and you probably do,) get a set of compensated saddles.
A blend of vintage + modern makes for a good Telecaster
Squier's Classic Vibe Telecaster '50s is a truly fine instrument that suits what most players want when it comes to a proper Telecaster.
However, one you might want to give consideration to is the Fender American Special Telecaster.
While true it's modern and not a '53, it has a very nice blend of vintage + modern, just like the Squier CV does. However, the "more vintage" of the two is the Squier. Ultimately, it's your choice which one you think is best for you.
The '53 is cool, no question about it. Lots of history in that guitar, lots of "mojo," and so on. But unless you have really deep pockets, you can't afford it. You can afford the Squier however. And if you want to spend more, the American Special is a good choice as well. If you've been biding your time and waiting for "that Tele," grab a Special. It's priced lower than an American Standard but still delivers in fine style. You won't be disappointed.